Allocation of resources for a plurality of hosts

ABSTRACT

It is presented a method for enabling allocation of resources for a plurality of hosts. The method is performed by a server (1) and comprises identifying (S100) a service running on one or more of the plurality of hosts, determining (S140) a stretch factor for a recurring load pattern for the service running on the one or more of the plurality of hosts, and storing (S150) the identified service together with the determined stretch factor. It is also presented a server, a computer program and a computer program product.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention relates to a method for enabling allocation of resourcesfor a plurality of hosts, and a server, a computer program and acomputer program product thereof.

BACKGROUND

Cloud computing refers to a way of managing hardware equipment, makingit easy to segment hosts, storage areas and network links. All thesegmentations available for each of those technologies are not directlydependent on the cloud but they are heavily used in cloud environmentsin order to get the maximum utilization rate. Increased resource-usageefficiency and re-usability of available hardware makes cloud computinga very attractive solution for many companies nowadays. Therefore, cloudcomputing can be thought of as a way of managing hardware equipment toaggregate capacity and segment it in order to give service to multipleusers.

There are three main resources required to achieve cloud computing:compute resources, networking resources and storage resources.

The compute resources represent the computing power available in thecloud. The compute resources give the user the ability to define thenumber of resources needed to fulfil his/her query in terms of CentralProcessing Unit (CPU) and Random Access Memory (RAM).

The networking resources represent the networking side in a deployment.The networking resources are currently developing rapidly and it allowscloud administrators to configure not only the virtual networkingdeployment but also the physical networking deployment. Software DefinedNetworking (SDN) may be used for networking deployment.

The storage resources represent the storage part in the runningresources, i.e. virtual machines. The storage part in the runningresources correspond to the disk and/or memory blocks used by thevirtual machines or any kind of managed object using the persistentstorage in the cloud. The storage resources can usually be configured toperform redundancy or distributed storage across different hosts.

Cloud computing components usually make use of different drivers, suchas hypervisors and virtual switches, installed on hosts. A hypervisor orvirtual machine monitor (VMM) is a piece of computer software, firmwareor hardware that creates and runs Virtual Machines (VMs). A virtualswitch is a logical switching fabric built into a VM infrastructure sothat the Virtual Machines (VMs) can be networked wherever you need them.

Even though the majority of cloud deployments use virtualization ofresources, virtualization is not strictly necessary and hence, cloudcomputing and virtualization can be de-coupled. Cloud computing can runin bare-metal in some occasions in order to avoid virtualizationoverheads and achieve better performance using other kinds of isolationsystems like containers. Virtualization can also be used in othercontexts than cloud computing.

Both mechanisms, containers and hypervisors, are different methods forachieving segmentation and better resource usage efficiency in the cloudinfrastructure. Both containers and hypervisors are mainly used toachieve segmentation in order to divide the resources and achieve muchhigher usage-efficiency of the available physical resources, and also toachieve isolation of compute, networking and storage resources so theseresources can be seen as treated as completely independent machines eventhough they are sharing the physical resources underneath.

Resource scheduling is a known problem in cloud computing. Resourceschedulers are a part in the infrastructure that is aware of theavailable resources and responsible for deciding where to assign newprocesses or virtual services or VMs upon request.

The cloud computing paradigm has become a cornerstone for networks andservices in which computing, networking and storage resources are hostedin interconnected and federated data centres. The infrastructure is madeavailable on demand to operators, users and their applications.

FIG. 1 presents how various cloud levels typically are found in a datacentre. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) utilizes the lowest fourlayers, Platform as a service (PaaS) utilizes all but the highest layerand Software as a service (SaaS) utilizes all eighth layers.

SUMMARY

It is an object of the invention to enable optimization of allocation ofresources for a data centre.

According to a first aspect of the invention, there is presented amethod for enabling allocation of resources for a plurality of hosts.The method is performed by a server and comprises identifying a servicerunning on one or more of the plurality of hosts, determining a stretchfactor for a recurring load pattern for the service running on the oneor more of the plurality of hosts, and storing the identified servicetogether with the determined stretch factor.

By the presented method, an ability to identify services running ondifferent hardware is achieved.

The method may further comprise extracting host load data directly fromthe plurality of hosts, the host load data being related to theidentified service.

The method may further comprise determining a load pattern for theidentified service from the extracted host load data, and comparing thedetermined load pattern with similar load patterns to define a recurringload pattern. The comparing may comprise calculating dominantfrequencies of load patterns. The dominant frequencies may be calculatedby a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).

The stretch factor may associate a first load pattern having a firsttime series of a first length to a second load pattern having a secondtime series of a second length different from the first length, andwherein the first time series and the second time series have the samekey characteristics.

The stretch factor may be determined by Dynamic Time Warping (DTW).

The stretch factor may be determined by both comparing the identifiedload pattern with similar load patterns and comparing similar loadpatterns with the identified load pattern.

The method may further comprise training a classifier with theidentified service normalized with the determined stretch factor.

The method may further comprise training a classifier with theidentified service and with the determined stretch factor.

The method may further comprise predicting a load pattern for a service,utilizing the trained classifier.

The method may further comprise removing stored load patterns whenobsolete.

The plurality of hosts may be a plurality of physical hosts, and theallocation of resources may be an allocation of physical resources. Thehost load data may be physical host load data.

The plurality of hosts may be a plurality of virtual hosts, and theallocation of resources may be an allocation of virtual resources. Thehost load data may be virtual host load data.

According to a second aspect of the invention, there is presented aserver for enabling allocation of resources for a plurality of hosts.The server comprises a processor and a computer program product. Thecomputer program product stores instructions that, when executed by theprocessor, causes the server to identify a service running on one ormore of the plurality of hosts, determine a stretch factor for arecurring load pattern for the service running on the one or more of theplurality of hosts, and to store the identified service together withthe determined stretch factor.

The server may further be caused to extract host load data directly fromthe plurality of hosts, the host load data being related to theidentified service. The server may further be caused to determine a loadpattern for the identified service from the extracted host load data,and to compare the determined load pattern with similar load patterns todefine a recurring load pattern. The compare may comprise calculatedominant frequencies of load patterns. The dominant frequencies may becalculated by a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).

The stretch factor may associate a first load pattern having a firsttime series of a first length to a second load pattern having a secondtime series of a second length different from the first length, andwherein the first time series and the second time series have the samekey characteristics.

The stretch factor may be determined by Dynamic Time Warping (DTW).

The stretch factor may be determined by both comparing the identifiedload pattern with similar load patterns and comparing similar loadpatterns with the identified load pattern.

The server may further be caused to train a classifier with theidentified service normalized with the determined stretch factor.

The server may further be caused to train a classifier with theidentified service and with the determined stretch factor.

The server may further be caused to predict a load pattern for aservice, utilizing the trained classifier.

The server may further be caused to remove stored load patterns whenobsolete.

The plurality of hosts may be a plurality of physical hosts, and theallocation of resources may be an allocation of physical resources. Thehost load data may be physical host load data.

The plurality of hosts may be a plurality of virtual hosts, and theallocation of resources may be an allocation of virtual resources. Thehost load data may be virtual host load data.

According to a third aspect of the invention, there is presented aserver for enabling allocation of resources for a plurality of hosts.The server comprises a determination manager for identifying a servicerunning on one or more of the plurality of hosts, determining a stretchfactor for a recurring load pattern for the service running on the oneor more of the plurality of hosts, and for storing the identifiedservice together with the determined stretch factor. The server maycomprise a classify manager for training a classifier with theidentified service normalized with the determined stretch factor, or fortraining a classifier with the identified service and with thedetermined stretch factor.

According to a fourth aspect of the invention, there is presented acomputer program for enabling allocation of resources for a plurality ofhosts. The computer program comprises computer program code which, whenrun on a server, causes the server to identify a service running on oneor more of the plurality of hosts, determine a stretch factor for arecurring load pattern for the service running on the one or more of theplurality of hosts, and to store the identified service together withthe determined stretch factor.

According to a fifth aspect of the invention, there is presented acomputer program product comprising a computer program and a computerreadable storage means on which the computer program is stored.

Generally, all terms used in the claims are to be interpreted accordingto their ordinary meaning in the technical field, unless explicitlydefined otherwise herein. All references to “a/an/the element,apparatus, component, means, step, etc.” are to be interpreted openly asreferring to at least one instance of the element, apparatus, component,means, step, etc., unless explicitly stated otherwise. The steps of anymethod disclosed herein do not have to be performed in the exact orderdisclosed, unless explicitly stated.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention is now described, by way of example, with reference to theaccompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating layers in a cloud model;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating an environment whereembodiments presented herein can be applied;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating stretched time seriesaccording to an embodiment presented herein;

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating methods according to embodimentspresented herein;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram illustrating some components of a serveraccording to an embodiment presented herein; and

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing functional modules of a serveraccording to an embodiment presented herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention will now be described more fully hereinafter withreference to the accompanying drawings, in which certain embodiments ofthe invention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied inmany different forms and should not be construed as limited to theembodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided byway of example so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete,and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in theart. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout the description.

Cloud systems require elastic resource allocation to minimizeresource-provisioning costs while meeting Service Level Objectives(SLOs). As such it is critical for Data Centre users to allocate justenough resources to meet the application requirements while minimizingthe costs incurred by a pay-as-you-go model. Cloud computing resourcesmay comprise one or more of the following types: core of a centralprocessing unit (CPU core), memory, disc usage, incoming networktraffic, and outgoing network traffic.

However, cloud services have different running requirements and it isnot always the case that the IaaS provided knows what is running where.For example, an infrastructure operator can pinpoint all VirtualMachines (VMs) and containers on physical hosts but not what is actuallyrunning within the virtualized resources.

There exist different methods to identify what is actually runningwithin the virtualized resources, like for instance by deploying anagent within the VM/container. But such methods are intrusive as theyare injected within the space of the VM/container user.

A potential non-intrusive approach is to study host loads, i.e. theloads generated on the physical hosts by the virtual applications (VMsor containers). However, since hardware across different infrastructurevaries (different CPUs, memory size/speed, disks, etc.), a similarapplication run on different infrastructure will produce different loadpatterns if the hardware is different, and result in differentperformance. It is thus hard to classify what is running where.

A solution presented herein enables an automated, non-intrusive approachto handle classification of an application (i.e. what is running where)across different hardware configurations in a cloud environment.

Choosing the correct amount of resources for a particular workload is acomplex task when using a single host and a specific hardware. Cloudsolutions make this both simpler and more complex. Simplicity comes fromnot having to manage the physical infrastructure and the dynamicprovisioning of on-demand resources. Complexity is increased byjittering introduced by virtualization, sharing (contention) ofresources between different tenants on the same physical resources, andnot knowing which hardware is behind an IaaS.

An embodiment of a method for classifying different applications usingan application-agnostic, black box approach is presented that can beapplied in large data centres. The embodiment relies on extractingQuality of Service(QoS) metrics directly from host load data (e.g. CPUutilization), on light-weight signal processing (e.g. Dynamic TimeWarping (DTW)) to identify recurring application patterns or signatures,and to produce classifiable, multi-dimensional data sets that can beused to reliably recognize applications across different hardware (i.e.what is running where).

As a result, by identifying different applications across differentvirtualized infrastructure, a data centre user can tune its resources tobetter match the workload and costs. Or a cloud provider can optimizeworkloads over various hardware deployments.

The embodiments of methods presented herein can handle black-box systemsas well as white-box systems. They can continuously tracks dynamicresource requirements of applications in an unobtrusive way and predictwhat is running where.

To be able to classify applications, or combination of applications,regardless of hardware configuration the following steps may be taken:

identify recurring load patterns, estimate a stretch factor by using DTWand determine stretch factor, and classify application.

FIG. 2 schematically illustrates an environment where an embodiment of amethod can be applied. The hosts 1 and 2 may be virtual hosts and/orphysical host. The guests 1 and 2 are applications, which may be VMsrunning on one or more physical host, or other applications running onone or more VMs. The applications and host load data after any requireddata conversion 2 are stored in a database 3. To identify recurring loadpatterns 4 of guests 1 and/or 2, on the hosts 1 and/or 2, both currentload/host data as well as historical load/host data are used. Based onthis a stretch factor is estimated 5, which is stored in the database 3together with the related application. Load on the hosts 1 and/or 2 canthereafter be predicted 6, utilizing current data, and historical datafrom the database.

The embodiment identifies repeating resource usage patterns. Thesepatterns are often caused by repeating requests in a particularsequence, over time, or iterative computations. These patterns may becalled the signature of an application (or of a set of applications)running on a physical host.

The embodiment needs to be able to extract and pipe the host load datainformation (such as CPU, memory, I/O, local interrupt counters, etc.)on a per-physical node basis towards a time-series capable storage, andto have access to an analytics engine. These metrics are then used astime-series data sets of varying length.

To avoid making assumptions about the length of a repeating pattern, theembodiment uses Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to calculate dominantfrequencies of resource-usage variation in the observed data set. Thisis applied to each feature from the physical node. Starting from aresource-usage time series L, the FFT determines coefficients thatrepresent the amplitude of each frequency component f. The dominantfrequencies are those with the highest signal power. If multipledominating frequencies have similar amplitude, the lowest dominatingfrequency is selected, thereby finding the longest observed repeatingpattern. The FFT thus provides the dominant frequency f_(d).

Given f_(d), a pattern window size W can be defined in the followingway:

W=(1/f _(d))r

where r is the sampling rate.

The original dataset L (or time series) composed of the metrics streamis split into T=L/W pattern windows: P₁, P₂, . . . , P_(T).

The next step is to detect whether the pattern windows contain repeatingpatterns. Different methods can be used to evaluate similarity betweenwindow pairs P_(i) and P_(j): Pearson product-moment correlationcoefficient, spearman rank correlation coefficient, or distancecorrelation (dCor). If all pattern windows are similar, the resourcetime series are flagged as having repeating behaviour, and an averagevalue of the samples in each position of the pattern windows is used.

Note that the length of the time series window L is not necessarily amultiple of the application length W. This means that even if anapplication pattern has been found, the embodiment still needs todetermine a stretch factor via e.g. Dynamic Time Warping (DTW).

The capability to identify the same services (or combinations of sameservices), even though they are running on different hardware andtherefore have different patterns, to infer a stretch factor between thesame services (or combination of services) running on differenthardware/conditions. The idea of the stretch factor is that the sameservices have the same patterns but they are stretched (in time)versions of each other, which is illustrated in FIG. 3. A servicerunning on a slow machine would have a longer pattern compared to thesame service running on a fast machine. The time axis is more or lessstretched out to be longer. Key characteristics of the pattern, such asnumber of peaks, height of peaks etc., are however the same. In FIG. 3the lower pattern illustrated in a solid line is longer, i.e. running ona slower machine, compared to the upper pattern illustrated in s dashedline.

Finding and inferring a stretch factor between all similar patterns canbe accomplished utilizing DTW. DTW measures similarity between twotemporal sequences which may vary in speed or time. Any element in anaccumulated DTW matrix indicates the dynamic time warping distancebetween series P_(i) and P_(j).

Once an application S with size W is found, the last T measurementsamples are retrieved to form a time series S′. Since S and S′ aresimilar but time-shifted, the DTW algorithm will determine an alignmenttherebetween. The result is the minimum distance mapping from S′ to S.This allows predicting a point-to-point mapping between S′ and S, whichin turn allows the algorithm to find the position of the current value(i.e. the last point on S′) on the application S.

The embodiment makes the point that the dynamic mapping from S′ to S,i.e. the stretch factor, is correlated with, the resources allocated tothe application from the perspective of the host. To simplify, a serverwith a 2×CPU capability will run an application a stretch factor timesfaster than a server with 1×CPU capability.

The described process for determining the stretch factor is applied ondetected pattern applications against all know pattern applications, andon all known pattern applications against detected applications. Inother words, the matching is attempted in the two directions. This maybe performed, since only one of the directions is a valid stretch, whichis not known in advance.

In other words, the DTW may be used bi-directionally, once theapplication patterns are learnt, they are stored, and as a result, whena new application pattern is identified, a stretch factor can beestimated, or if no stretch factor can be estimated, then this may be anon-stored application pattern.

For clean-up and to reduce complexity of an application pattern astretch factor database, obsolete application patterns and stretchfactors may be removed. Such a removal of obsolete load patterns may bedone either using a predefined time limit or, by removing applicationpatterns that have lost their predictive power (i.e. they are notre-used during a predefined period of time).

This results in a large selection of data that is grouped into sameservices (or combinations of services) as well as a stretch factorbetween services in the same group.

The identified application patterns may e.g. be used in two differentways to train a classifier that should be able to classify new unseendata.

Unsupervised Learning Approach

The stretch factor is used to normalize all patterns to the same stretchfactor before training of the classifier. This provides the advantage toinclude all patterns regardless of stretch when training the classifierthat will be able to classify services.

New samples will then be put through the same process and be normalizedbefore the classification.

Classification in this approach is an unsupervised learning problem inthe sense that all normalized patterns are clustered and similarpatterns end up in the same cluster.

Once the model is trained, classifying new services is more or less theproblem of checking which cluster the new sample is closest to. This canfor instance be done using K nearest neighbour (knn).

Labels are not necessarily needed but will of course be helpful todescribe the different clusters.

Supervised Learning Approach

Data is kept as-is. The stretch-factor is included as a new feature todescribe the data.

The data is labelled with labels capturing the different services, suchas web-server, Spark, Flink etc. This assumes that the label for eachclass is known for at least one specific stretch factor. Then thisinformation is used to automatically label all other data belonging tothe same class regardless of stretch factor.

This data is then used in a supervised learning problem to train aclassifier that can classify new data. Any existing machine learningalgorithm can be used for this, such as Random Forest, SVM etc. The factthat the same service is described with data that has different stretchfactors will create a model that generalizes well.

A method, according to an embodiment, for enabling allocation ofresources for a plurality of hosts, is presented with reference to FIG.4, which method is performed by a server 1 with reference to FIG. 5. Themethod comprises the steps of identifying S100 a service running on oneor more of the plurality of hosts, determining S140 a stretch factor fora recurring load pattern for the service running on the one or more ofthe plurality of hosts, and storing S150 the identified service togetherwith the determined stretch factor.

The method may further comprise the step of extracting S110 host loaddata directly from the plurality of hosts, the host load data beingrelated to the identified service. The method may further comprise thesteps of determining S120 a load pattern for the identified service, andcomparing S130 the determined load pattern with similar load patterns todefine a recurring load pattern. The comparing step S130 may comprisecalculating dominant frequencies of load patterns. The dominantfrequencies may be calculated by a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).

The stretch factor may associate a first load pattern having a firsttime series of a first length to a second load pattern having a secondtime series of a second length different from the first length, andwherein the first time series and the second time series have the samekey characteristics.

The stretch factor may be determined by Dynamic Time Warping (DTW).

The stretch factor may be determined by both comparing the identifiedload pattern with similar load patterns and comparing similar loadpatterns with the identified load pattern.

The method may further comprise a step of training S160 a classifierwith the identified service normalized with the determined stretchfactor.

The method may further comprise a step of training S160 a classifierwith the identified service and with the determined stretch factor.

The method may comprise the further step of predicting S170 a loadpattern for a service, utilizing the trained classifier.

The method may further comprise a step removing stored load patternswhen obsolete.

The plurality of hosts may be a plurality of physical hosts, and theallocation of resources may be an allocation of physical resources. Thehost load data may be physical host load data.

The plurality of hosts may be a plurality of virtual hosts, and theallocation of resources may be an allocation of virtual resources. Thehost load data may be virtual host load data.

The different steps of the presented embodiments of the method performedby the server 1, may be performed by an action directly by the serverwith own computing resources, or cloud based with other computingresources in the cloud. The server 1 may for some hosts act as adedicated server and for other hosts act in a distributed manner.

A server 1, according to an embodiment, is presented with reference toFIG. 5, which server is configured to enable allocation of resources fora plurality of hosts. The server 1 comprises: a processor 10 and acomputer program product 12, 13 storing a computer program 14, 15 withinstructions that, when executed by the processor 10, causes the server1 to identify S100 a service running on one or more of the plurality ofhosts, determine S140 a stretch factor for a recurring load pattern forthe service running on the one or more of the plurality of hosts, and tostore S150 the identified service together with the determined stretchfactor.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing some components of the server 1.The processor 10 may be provided using any combination of one or more ofa suitable central processing unit (CPU), multiprocessor,microcontroller, digital signal processor (DSP), application specificintegrated circuit etc., capable of executing software instructions of acomputer program 14 stored in a memory. The memory can thus beconsidered to be or form part of the computer program product 12. Theprocessor 10 may be configured to execute methods described herein withreference to FIG. 4.

The memory may be any combination of read and write memory (RAM) andread only memory (ROM). The memory may also comprise persistent storage,which, for example, can be any single one or combination of magneticmemory, optical memory, solid state memory or even remotely mountedmemory.

A second computer program product 13 in the form of a data memory mayalso be provided, e.g. for reading and/or storing data during executionof software instructions in the processor 10. The data memory 13 can beany combination of read and write memory (RAM) and read only memory(ROM) and may also comprise persistent storage, which, for example, canbe any single one or combination of magnetic memory, optical memory,solid state memory or even remotely mounted memory. The data memory 13may e.g. hold other software instructions 15, to improve functionalityfor the server 1.

The server 1 may further comprise an I/O interface ii including e.g. auser interface. Other components of the network device are omitted inorder not to obscure the concepts presented herein.

The server may further be caused to extract Silo host load data directlyfrom the plurality of hosts, the host load data being related to theidentified service. The server may further be caused to determine S120 aload pattern for the identified service, and to compare S130 thedetermined load pattern with similar load patterns to define a recurringload pattern. The compare may comprise calculate dominant frequencies ofload patterns. The dominant frequencies may be calculated by a FastFourier Transform (FFT).

The stretch factor may associate a first load pattern having a firsttime series of a first length to a second load pattern having a secondtime series of a second length different from the first length, andwherein the first time series and the second time series have the samekey characteristics.

The stretch factor may be determined by Dynamic Time Warping (DTW).

The stretch factor may be determined by both comparing the identifiedload pattern with similar load patterns and comparing similar loadpatterns with the identified load pattern.

The server may further be caused to train S160 a classifier with theidentified service normalized with the determined stretch factor.

The server may further be caused to train S160 a classifier with theidentified service and with the determined stretch factor.

The server may further be caused to predict S170 a load pattern for aservice, utilizing the trained classifier.

The server may further be caused to remove stored load patterns whenobsolete.

The plurality of hosts may be a plurality of physical hosts, and theallocation of resources may be an allocation of physical resources. Thehost load data may be physical host load data.

The plurality of hosts may be a plurality of virtual hosts, and theallocation of resources may be an allocation of virtual resources. Thehost load data may be virtual host load data.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing functional blocks of the server 1.The modules may be implemented as only software instructions such as acomputer program executing in the cache server or only hardware, such asapplication specific integrated circuits, field programmable gatearrays, discrete logical components, transceivers, etc. or as acombination thereof. In an alternative embodiment, some of thefunctional blocks may be implemented by software and other by hardware.The modules correspond to the steps in the methods illustrated in FIG.4, comprising a determination manager unit 6o and a classify managerunit 61. In the embodiments where one or more of the modules areimplemented by a computer program, then it shall be understood thatthese modules do not have to correspond to programming modules, but canbe written as instructions according to the programming language inwhich they would be implemented, since some programming languages do nottypically contain programming modules.

The determination manager 60 is for enabling allocation of resources fora plurality of hosts. This module corresponds to the identify step S100,extract step S110, the determine step S120, the compare step S130, thedetermine step S140 and the store step S150 of FIG. 4. This module cane.g. be implemented by the processor 10 of FIG. 5, when running thecomputer program.

The classify manager 61 may be for enabling allocation of resources fora plurality of hosts. This module corresponds to the train step S160 andthe predict step S170 of FIG. 4. This module can e.g. be implemented bythe processor 10 of FIG. 5, when running the computer program.

A computer program 14, 15 for enabling allocation of resources for aplurality of hosts is presented. The computer program comprises computerprogram code which, when run on a server 1, causes the server toidentify S100 a service running on one or more of the plurality ofhosts, determine S140 a stretch factor for a recurring load pattern forthe service running on the one or more of the plurality of hosts, and tostore S150 the identified service together with the determined stretchfactor.

A computer program product 12, 13 comprising a computer program 14, 15and a computer readable storage means on which the computer program isstored is also presented.

The invention has mainly been described above with reference to a fewembodiments. However, as is readily appreciated by a person skilled inthe art, other embodiments than the ones disclosed above are equallypossible within the scope of the invention, as defined by the appendedpatent claims.

1. A method for enabling allocation of resources for a plurality ofhosts, the method being performed by a server and comprising:identifying a service running on one or more of the plurality of hosts;determining a stretch factor for a recurring load pattern for theservice running on the one or more of the plurality of hosts; andstoring the identified service together with the determined stretchfactor.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: extracting hostload data directly from the plurality of hosts, the host load data beingrelated to the identified service.
 3. The method of claim 2, furthercomprising: determining a load pattern for the identified service fromthe extracted host load data; and comparing the determined load patternwith similar load patterns to define a recurring load pattern, whereinthe comparing comprises calculating dominant frequencies of loadpatterns, and the dominant frequencies are calculated by a Fast FourierTransform (FFT).
 4. (canceled)
 5. (canceled)
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein the stretch factor associates a first load pattern having afirst time series of a first length to a second load pattern having asecond time series of a second length different from the first length,and wherein the first time series and the second time series have thesame key characteristics.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the stretchfactor is determined by Dynamic Time Warping (DTW).
 8. The method claim1, wherein the stretch factor is determined by both comparing theidentified load pattern with similar load patterns and comparing similarload patterns with the identified load pattern.
 9. The method of claim1, comprising: training a classifier with the identified servicenormalized with the determined stretch factor, and/or training aclassifier with the identified service and with the determined stretchfactor.
 10. (canceled)
 11. The method of claim 9, comprising: predictinga load pattern for a service, utilizing the trained classifier. 12.(canceled)
 13. (canceled)
 14. (canceled)
 15. The method of claim 1,wherein the plurality of hosts are a plurality of virtual hosts, and theallocation of resources is an allocation of virtual resources. 16.(canceled)
 17. A server for enabling allocation of resources for aplurality of hosts, the server comprising: a processor; and a computerprogram product storing instructions that, when executed by theprocessor, causes the server to: identify a service running on one ormore of the plurality of hosts; determine a stretch factor for arecurring load pattern for the service running on the one or more of theplurality of hosts; and store the identified service together with thedetermined stretch factor.
 18. The server of claim 17, further causedto: extract host load data directly from the plurality of hosts, thehost load data being related to the identified service.
 19. The serverof claim 18, further caused to: determine a load pattern for theidentified service from the extracted host load data; and compare thedetermined load pattern with similar load patterns to define a recurringload pattern.
 20. The server of claim 19, wherein the compare comprisescalculate dominant frequencies of load patterns and the dominantfrequencies are calculated by a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). 21.(canceled)
 22. The server of claim 17, wherein the stretch factorassociates a first load pattern having a first time series of a firstlength to a second load pattern having a second time series of a secondlength different from the first length, and wherein the first timeseries and the second time series have the same key characteristics. 23.The server of claim 17, wherein the stretch factor is determined byDynamic Time Warping (DTW).
 24. The server of claim 17, wherein thestretch factor is determined by both comparing the identified loadpattern with similar load patterns and comparing similar load patternswith the identified load pattern.
 25. (canceled)
 26. The server of claim17, further caused to: train a classifier with the identified serviceand with the determined stretch factor and/or train a classifier withthe identified service normalized with the determined stretch factor.27. The server of claim 26, further caused to: predict a load patternfor a service, utilizing the trained classifier; and/or remove storedload patterns when obsolete.
 28. (canceled)
 29. The server of claim 18,wherein the plurality of hosts are a plurality of physical hosts, andthe allocation of resources is an allocation of physical resources, andthe host load data is physical host load data.
 30. (canceled) 31.(canceled)
 32. (canceled)
 33. (canceled)
 34. (canceled)
 35. (canceled)36. A computer program product comprising a computer program forenabling allocation of resources for a plurality of hosts, the computerprogram comprising computer program code which, when run on a server,causes the server to: identify a service running on one or more of theplurality of hosts; determine a stretch factor for a recurring loadpattern for the service running on the one or more of the plurality ofhosts; and store the identified service together with the determinedstretch factor.